Paper details

Paper authors	Elsa TYSZLER
In panel on	“Humanitarian borders” between care and control
Paper presenter(s) will be presenting	In-Person / Online

Abstract

Since 2017, people in exile have been attempting to cross Alpine borders on foot. With the re-establishment of intra-Schengen controls, the military-police control system on the French-Italian border has been significantly reinforced. Faced with repression and deaths in the mountains, some inhabitants of the Briançon region started to organise marauding operations at night to help people seeking to cross. Whilst the marauding activities were initially a spontaneous impulse to help people in danger, their permanence until today has given rise to little-known events and dynamics. This paper describes the evolution of “marauding” over time and deconstructs the myth of the “good mountain man” which homogenises a reality of diverse commitments and invisibilises elements of border violence. Fieldwork allowed us to study the gender and race relations that structure this humanitarian activity. While we do not question the need for marauding, especially in winter, we show how it can be the scene of gender and racial performances that can sometimes endanger the people to be helped. For some, marauding has become a means of obtaining humanitarian prestige, leading, in some cases, to taking more risks for people in exile, reduced racialised bodies to be saved.

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